"I always thought paradise would be a kind of library." Jorge Luis Borges

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Summer Reading Conclusions.

Sometimes there are summers when you buy a kindle so your reading can easily be packed for your escapes, and sometimes there are summers when reading itself is the escape–that is the story of this one. Embracing NYC summer isn’t my strong suit, unless it’s after sundown, and with my limited travel this year, I think I nerdily broke some personal records for number of books consumed.

I spent most mornings in July on my fire escape drawing and painting and making my way through Natalie Goldberg’s (author of one of the best books on the writing process, Writing Down the Bones) The Great Spring. In this one she writes about the connections between writing and meditation, and how intertwined her practices of each have become over time. The other nonfiction was a bit darker in nature, including Sleeping with the Enemy, (about Coco Chanel’s Nazi ties during World War Two), Brain on Fire by Susannah Cahalan (fascinating and informative story about the rare autoimmune disease she survived), and Dog Medicine (about how author Julie Barton made it through severe depression with the help of her golden retriever).

Walking through Kentucky wildflowers with my parents in Louisville.

I read a lot of fiction about modern families (A Blue Spool of Thread, Among the Ten Thousand Things, The Nest, Did You Ever Have a Family) and the one I would most highly recommend is Imagine Me Gone by Adam Haslett. It is about how a family deals with the depression and severe anxiety of the father and one of the sons. Haslett’s fictional account has roots in his own familial experience and as he tells the story through the voices of the wife and children, a reader gets a thorough picture of how people cope (or not) through incredibly poignant writing with a dose of dark humor.

The truth that stood out to me the most in the majority of the fictional characters I read this summer (who are representative of the majority of people I pass on the street? I don’t know.) is that people are unhappy. But. The thread of hope I found in some of the fiction stories and much of the nonfiction is trying to be truly present in the moment can assuage that reality a bit. Not worrying about what has passed or what may be ahead, not mindlessly scrolling at other people’s 140 characters or pictures, but looking for the beauty in the moment. This is a recurring theme for me–a roller coaster of a theory that I haven’t mastered, but the more I read, the more I want to try.

A few days with my extended family out east.

My most recommended book, though, is actually a young adult novel: All American Boys. It tells the story in two voices: of a black teenager wrongfully arrested and beaten by a white police officer, and a white teenager who witnessed the event. Both narrators wrestle honestly with questions our nation faces–and with nuance, an art rarely seen in most mainstream media. I tell students books can be mirrors–that help us see ourselves, and books can be windows–that help us see others. Way more than any of the adult-level fiction I read this summer, this book was hands down the most thought provoking and important.

All this to say, I am excited to get back to work in a few days. I can’t wait to talk about All American Boys with my students, and I’m pretty excited to think about reading as more than just an escape, though it was the perfect medicine for this particular summer.

One thought on “Summer Reading Conclusions.”

Loved Imagine Me Gone and did not love the Nest. It felt overdone somehow. I just finished Hillbilly Elegy- another great family story and am going to read All American Boys soon- always love your thoughts on reading, why we read and why it’s so good for us.